2003: Invasion of Iraq: Salam Pax, the ‘Baghdad Blogger’, posts updates from the city as it is bombed, providing a particular contrast to war reporters ’embedded’ with the armed forces and demonstrating the importance of non-journalist bloggers

2003: Christopher Allbritton raises $15,000 through his blogBack-to-Iraq 3.0, to send him to report independently from the war, demonstrating the ability of blogs to financially support independent journalism (called the ‘tip-jar model’).

2004: Rathergate/Memogate: CBS’ 60 Minutes broadcast a story about George W. Bush’s National Guard service, and within minutes a section of the blogosphere mobilises to discredit the documents on which it is based. Dan Rather eventually resigns as a result.

2004: Asian Tsunami: more blogs mobilise around a disaster, of particular significance for video blogging

2007: Dave Winer wins his $2,000 bet (made in 2002) that blogs will rank higher than the New York Times for the top 5 news stories of 2007 (h/t Bob Stepno), demonstrating the importance of blogging in news distribution.

Thanks. How big was that in the US? It did demonstrate the crowdsourcing potential, so I think I'll put it in. Will also include Christopher Allbritton's Back to Iraq for showing fundraising potential.

Tough call. It's not a blogger doing journalism or a journalist doing blogging, but it does bring home the importance of blogs as a source… (if not as a medium) Howard Dean would probably be an equal milestone if I was to go that direction – particularly the hiring of Daily Kos man Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. I'm gonna hold back on this to see if anyone else has a take…

As something to watch, reading Narvic the other day, he was talking about SixApart''s new Journalist Bailout programme for all of the hacks being laid off in the States. The economic crisis plus the lack of a viable news business model in many places plus the development (not premature death) of blogs might have a big impact on journalism-blogging.

US blogs raising pro journos' consciousness of blogging in 1999 — Jim Romenesko's MediaNews.org (now Poynter.org/romenesko)became a must-read for print industry gossip, memos, layoffs etc. Around the same time Dan Gillmor's original San Jose Mercury blog showed how a print newspaper reporter could use a blog to have a conversation with readers.

This is another difficult one. I'm not sure how key a 'moment' these are – for the same reason I've left out the successes of Daily Kos, Boing Boing, etc. Did Gillmor have any particular successes that demonstrated the power of the medium?

Thanks Paulos72 – I didn’t know about that story and it’s a great example of computer assisted reporting/blog journalism. Not sure it’s significant in affecting blogging journalism more widely, however – I could also have included various other big scoops by blogs (Chinese pet food story and Itchmo etc. is one strong case), but they all prove the same point: blogs can do journalism.

One thing you’ve omitted here, but maybe rightly so, is the Virginia Tech shootings. The reports appeared more on social networking sites than blogs in that case.

I like your list very much, but a few of the British events stand out for me in that no one in the U.S. knows anything about them. Thus there are probably some key events in other countries that you (and I) have omitted through simple ignorance.

In India, bloggers have long been doing what the Main Stream Media have been reluctant to do: bring out the truth. The MSM – Corporate- Political complex is huge out here.

1. In 2005, blogger Gaurav Sabnis wrote about the wrong doings of a private Business School IIPM (Google” IIPM” scandal). The traditional em dia outlets were reluctant to follow up because of the said Business School’s huge ad spends.

2. During 2008 Bihar Floods bloggers from the State of Bihar mounted a co-ordinated effort to channelize relief efforts.

3. Many, many times bloggers in India have brough out stories of mainstream media (newspapers) plagiarising from bloggers or other online news sources.

Great list. I’ve created a dipity timeline from your list and Mindy’s post on a similar subject.

I also had a suggestion for the list which popped up whilst I was thinking about some defining moments of the Presidential election. How about a mention for Mayhill Fowler who got two big scoops via the huffington.

I think that the December 2008 insurrectionist events in Greece, precipitated by the shooting dead of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police, is something in which it was citizen journalists such as Teacher Dude and activist-reporters such as those from Occupied London who were at the forefront of globalising coverage, translating local reports, and providing a focal point for breaking news which was ignored or not picked up by the mainstream media (note: the two examples given are English language sites, but are Greece-based/were in Greece at the time).

There are many instances of bloggers and microbloggers in China reporting on things which are subject to official censorship (rural riots, urban protests etc) – I can’t think of any specific examples, but the UK-based Blood & Treasure blog follows much of it and would, no doubt, be able to supply examples.